From: Alex Ferguson (alex@dcs.gla.ac.uk)
Date: Sat 09 Apr 1994 - 01:19:41 EEST
I see no reason to eagerly apply earthly "laws" on biological taxonomy and interbreeding to Glorantha (though doubtless the God Learners and other Western types would lap it up), since frankly they have enough trouble accounting for earthly phenemona such as litigons and Artic gull subspecies rings, as has already been kindly pointed out.
(Anyone who things that there's a indisputable basis for taxonomic hierarchies should look up the half-dozen proposed organisations of the genera of (big) cats, or wonder why Homo sapiens is in a whole Family of the order of primates to itself, while exhibiting 98% genetic similarity to other higher primates (in fact, I'm sure I've heard serious speculation as to the possibility of human-gorilla crosses)).
An important consideration in Glorantha is that entities can evidently _change_ species (e.g. KL adoption rites into Uzdom). I'd suggest that your chances of breeding with something in G. is more to do with your Runic and Mythic Identity than 'biological' concerns. Frex, I'd bet a human has a better chance of breeding successfully with an elf than with a wolf (bet void in case of Telmori), though you could argue aldryami are in a completely different Kingdom. Possession of the same Form rune is likely to be a big help. The further apart you are, the more magical assistance is likely to be necessary for a happy bouncing hybrid to result. This suggests not a strictly heirarchical notion of similarly, but some sort of multi-dimensional sliding scale: trolls are somewhat 'related' to other darkness creatures, but are also `related' to humans via the Man rune, in a different `direction'.
But watch out for the bumps.
Alex.
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